Trucks aren’t allowed on McFadden bridge—or are they?
Linda O’Rourke lives in a quiet neighborhood on the northwest corner of Huntington Beach, but the trucks using the nearby bridge on McFadden Avenue have been at the center of a dust up among her fellow residents and the authorities responsible for keeping the roads safe.
With the California Highway Patrol saying trucks shouldn’t use the road and Huntington Beach Public Works officials saying they can use the route for local sites, locals said they feel nobody is really listening.
Residents said they have asked the city of Huntington Beach, officials with Orange County Road, and Caltrans to place “no trucks” signs near the bridge that spans the 405 Freeway to warn the vehicles not to drive down the street.
“You’d be sitting there and just the roar of these trucks going by is crazy,” O’Rourke said. “I’ve called the Midway City Sanitation and told them their trucks come barreling down this hill and if they lose control, they’re going to take out a couple of houses.”
California Highway Patrol commercial enforcement officer Kevin Scord said there is a high volume of dirt-hauling trucks passing by the area because of construction on Edinger Avenue, though they should be using different roads.
“Big projects like that have no excuse,” he said. “They know the truck routes and they need to abide by the truck routes. They’re not allowed to go down McFadden.”
Scord explained that the proper routes to enter or leave that construction site are on Beach Boulevard, Goldenwest Street and Edinger Avenue.
But according to Huntington Beach Public Works Director Travis Hopkins, the trucks can use the bridge as long as they’re traveling to the site near that street, but they can’t use it to cross from city to city.
“They shouldn’t be using McFadden to get from Fountain Valley to someplace in Huntington Beach,” he said. “You should go to a truck route when you’re going across cities. And then when you get close to your location, you can then go to that delivery or pickup point and leave those truck routes.”
Hopkins added that police will cite trucks that abuse the road.
Resident Jan Beaumont has been complaining about the large vehicles since June 2012, around the time when construction for the new apartments next to Bella Terra began, she said.
Scord said he has been to the area to enforce the truck route and has talked with the job foreman to straighten things out, but said compliance lasts for an undeterminable amount of time before the trucks start meandering off the routes.
Hopkins said there is a “no trucks” sign posted at the intersection of Goldenwest Street and McFadden on the eastbound route, but according to Westminster Public Works Director Marwan Youssef, there isn’t such a sign on Beach and McFadden heading westbound.
If a sign were to be posted at that intersection, it would have to be done by Caltrans, Youssef said.
Beaumont said she’s fed up with trucks coming down the bridge and wants someone to place signs so that the law can be enforced.
She said she just wants the area to be safe and prevent an accident before it happens.
“I feel for her because with a high volume of trucks, it’s hard to get out of their tract safely,” Scord said. “It’s a legitimate concern.”
Beaumont has spearheaded the campaign to get signs posted near the area for almost a year, but she said she’s been bounced around by too many people and doesn’t know who else to turn to.
“The fact that they just ignore us is irritating because it’s been going on for so long,” she said. “They know that there’s a problem but they just don’t want to do anything. They want us to live here, to shop here and play here. But they don’t make it safe for us to get out of our tract.”